“The shift doesn’t mean that we lose our drive and ambition; it signifies that we become ambitious about something new. We make a commitment to living a life based on experiencing meaning and feeling purposeful, rather than never-ending demands and false promises that are the trademark of the ego’s agenda.”
W. W. Dyer
In his wonderful book “The Shift” Dr. Wayne Dyer guides us towards our inner world, showing us how our ego develops during growth and then accompanies us during our adult life, often sabotaging our life. The word ego comes from the Sanskrit word Ahamkara which literally means “sense of separation”. The sense of separation is very important for our survival so in this sense it is a necessary and useful part of us. It only becomes a problem when we are constantly caught up in our life, we only consider our health, our money, our children, our house, everything just revolves around our own little world. This leads to suffering, because any change that destroys our health or our relationships or our prosperity will show us the total insecurity of this life.
According to W. Dyer, there are 6 components of the ego:
1) Who I am is what I own
We grow up in a society that tells us that without having we are not important: money gives prestige and visibility and is therefore somehow praised. The funny thing is that deep inside ourselves we don’t change, if as children we were fond of our toys, as adults we become attached to new toys: a car, a mobile phone, a PC, a branded dress, a house, our money in the bank etc. There is the saying “what you own, eventually owns you” and for most human beings this is exactly what happens. This does not mean rejecting wealth if it presents itself in our lives, in fact the spiritually rich person tends to also attract material wealth towards them. The suggestion of Dr. Dyer is to visualize our life as “abundant”, this means that we never need to worry about material possessions because life will support us as we will support the people close to us. Balance happens when we receive and then give, so the money passes through us but we do not become slaves to it.
2) Who I am is What I do
As we grow up, society begins to praise us for some qualities that we develop before other children, so we learn that being “better” than others is a positive thing. No one teaches us to support others and praise their differences. This struggle for success continues at school with grades which are another way of saying that one kid is good and another one don’t deserve anything”; Fortunately, nowadays there are alternative schools that do not use grades and in these schools the children are more united with each other, there is much less aggression, they help each other more, it is strange that society has not yet deeply realized this. This struggle continues at university where people even get sick just to maintain a “high average point” and finally we arrive at work where our suffering continues until retirement age where we will arrive without knowing what contemplation, non-action means ( as cited in the tao te ching), BEING without DOING; and therefore we will spend our days in boredom and trying to keep ourselves active with any activity so as not to listen to our consciousness. When you act from Source you don’t do anything at all, you are penetrated by the action, you are just an instrument of consciousness, you allow life to live you and it is not you who lives life. So you are NOT what you do nor are you the goals you achieve.
3) Who I am Is what others think about me
To survive in our society we try to adapt to what people want from us; trying to satisfy everyone, the more we grow the more we lose our identity as unique and inimitable beings. This attempt to please everyone leads us to experience constant stress because we never feel free to express ourselves as we want, and the fear of being judged often blocks our expressiveness. We must constantly remind ourselves that we are exactly as we should be and that our originality is sacred so we only have to worry about how we see ourselves while trying to ignore all the judgements that come from outside.
4) I am separate form everybody else
Before wars, hatred, separations between men, there is a conflict within ourselves. This conflict arises from a sense of superiority, a voice tells you that you are better than others or that you are less violent or less selfish. The ultimate goal of spirituality is to understand that you are the cause of all the hatred in the world directly or indirectly and for this you must make yourself responsible. Being responsible means that we honor what we do in our lives, our work and we honor all forms of life that intersect our path recognizing that each of these encounters brings enrichment to our lives as it means to recognize hatred, meanness and the weakness that is present in our heart.
5) I am separate from what’s missing in my life
Our ego keeps insisting that something is missing in our life, we don’t have the right partner, we don’t have the right house, our job could be better, we would like to be fitter etc…. This attitude leads us to constantly fight and live in a state of continuous search that pushes us towards something that doesn’t exist, preventing us from enjoying the present moment which is really what matters: our happiness is today!
6) I am separate from God
I report the word God as Dyer writes it in his book, even if I would have preferred to use other words: Being, Source, Spirit or Universal energy. The word God is a word that has little meaning for me, I don’t believe in any being outside of us, we are all “children of God”, we are all sinners and we are all potential Buddhas. The only thing that sets us apart is the level of spiritual connection to this energy that pervades the universe. Our actions can therefore be guided by the ego which tells us to think only of ourselves and the achievement of our goals or we can act knowing that we are connected to all the other beings on the planet: this awareness will give a harmony to our actions that it will bring joy to ourselves and the beings around us.
